ASHLAND — Local Vietnam veterans associated with the Ashland Veteran Appreciation Events organization are hosting an Ashland Vietnam Era Reunion dinner on March 26, just ahead of National Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day on March 29.
Dinner volunteers, including Ashland resident Jack Cadley who served in 1968-69 and Jeromesville resident Dan Bicker who served in 1969-70, said the event is intended to provide Vietnam-era veterans with a sense of fellowship and closure.
The dinner is open to all Vietnam-era veterans, not exclusively those who traveled to Vietnam or were in combat. Attendees and volunteers planning to attend also had various roles during the war, such as former navy corpsman/medic Cadley and truck driver/wrecker operator Bicker.
Another volunteer, Ashland resident Greg Gorrell who served as a combat soldier in 1967, said while he now openly shares about his service, he wasn’t comfortable discussing it for approximately 40 years after he returned from the MeKong Delta region just before Christmas that year.
“Why do we do this now? It’s an opportunity for a lot of these men and women to heal after almost half a century,” Gorrell said.
Gorrell said he did not feel comfortable talking about his involvement in Vietnam because of the opposition to the war and the divide among the American public at the time of his return. Now, he hopes the dinner will be a place veterans can openly talk about their service.
This hope is shared by other volunteers as well, including Ashland resident Brooks Whitmore, who served in Vietnam in 1967-68 on Navy patrol boats.
“Things go on and what veterans have to do is they have to go on as well,” Whitmore said. “Dinners like this help that.”
March 26 will be the third Vietnam-era dinner hosted by the group in Ashland; the first two occurred in back-to-back years approximately three years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent disruptions.
The event will begin at 5 p.m. at the Eagles Club, with dinner at 6 p.m. followed by speaker Donna Rowe, who served as a head triage nurse for the emergency room of a field hospital in Saigon during the war, from 1968-69.
Overall, Rowe served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from 1964 until her honorable discharge in 1969, after which she continued to work as a Red Cross nurse and RN volunteer.
Rowe, who will be traveling to the event in March from her home in Georgia, was also the first woman inductee to the Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame in 2016.
Tickets — $10 per person — can be purchased by contacting the DeSanto/Kellogg law offices at 432 Center Street in Ashland.
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Although I did not serve in VietNam, I served in the USAF from 6 July 1960 to 2 April 1964. I served @ Kincheloe AFB in Michigan and Thule AFB in Greenland . When in Michigan, the base had fighter planes that flew to Cuba in case they were needed. It was during the Cuban Chrisis . John F. Kennedy was president then .
Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I served in the USAF from 6 July 1960 to 2 April 1964. I served at Kincheloe AFB,Michigan, and Thule AFB in Thule Greenland. When in Michigan the fighter planes flew south during the Cuban Chrisis. Thule was a SAC base. John F Kennedy was the president then.